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Tue Nov 20, 2012 at 06:40:10 AM CST

Leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People urged Governor Terry Branstad yesterday to change Iowa's extreme restrictions on voting rights for ex-felons and to address the huge race disparity in Iowa incarceration rates.

About 13,000 Iowans who would have been eligible to vote four years ago were barred from voting in this year's election. Iowa is one of only four states that do not automatically restore voting rights to felons who've done their time.

"Prison is supposed to be about rehabilitating people," says Dedric Doolin, president of the Cedar Rapids branch of the NAACP, "and how do you rehabilitate somebody if you continue to have them marked as a prisoner for the rest of their life?" [...]

"The litany of things that (Branstad) has on his list covers so many areas that it's near impossible for the average citizen, whether they're in prison or not, to respond to the issues that they're asking for in the application," says Arnold Woods, Jr. of Des Moines, president of the Iowa/Nebraska chapter of the NAACP.

But Woods says Branstad indicated one change in the process - that a felon need only be current in paying restitution rather than requiring them to pay it all before they can apply to get their voting rights back.

The governor told the group he is willing to look at being fair to felons by streamlining the process, although he didn't pledge any specifics. Branstad does believe he had to think of others, too. He said, 'We also think it's fair to society that when somebody commits a crime like that, that they have to earn their rights by having completed the sentence and the requirements of the sentence."

It hardly seems fair to block more than 99 percent of Iowa felons from voting for the rest of their lives. The U.S. banned poll taxes decades ago, because basic civil rights should not be contingent on one's financial means. During the last 15 years, 23 states have expanded voter eligibility for felons.

On prison disparities, the governor encouraged the group to work with the attorney general and county attorneys, who are responsible for charging people accused of crimes and bringing cases to trial.

In its press conference the NAACP, noted that one in 13 black Iowans are incarcerated, compared to one in 110 Caucasians - placing the among the highest in the country when it comes to the percentage of black residents in prison.

"We're first in the nation in the percentage of incarcerated African Americans," Woods said. "We think that is an issue that needs to be dealt with. The NAACP is anxious to get resolution to this issue."

A 2007 study by the Sentencing Project showed that "blacks in Iowa are imprisoned at 13.6 times the white rate in Iowa, the widest disparity in the nation." Former Governor Chet Culver's administration should have done more to address this problem. By urging the NAACP to take their complaints to county attorneys and Attorney General Tom Miller, Branstad signaled yesterday that he does not plan to lead on the issue.